News

Max, the new name of HBO Max as of May 23rd, will be adding a new food series with Zooey Deschanel, an animated series set in the world of Gremlins, and the rebirth of Clone High to its streaming lineup in June 2023. The Idol, starring The Weeknd and Johnny Depp’s daughter, Lily-Rose, arrives on June 4th after dividing the crowd at Cannes, and the much-anticipated third season of Warrior kicks off on June 29th.

Max’s June lineup also includes new seasons of And Just Like That…, Painting with John, and The Righteous Gemstones. Theatrical releases making their way to the streaming service include Avatar: The Way of Water and Magic Mike’s Last Dance.

Series & Films Arriving On Max In June 2023:

June 1

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

A Star Is Born (1954)

A Star Is Born (1976)

Army of Darkness (1993)

Balls of Fury (2007)

Beautiful Creatures (2013)

Big Daddy (1999)

Breach (2007)

Bulworth (1998)

Class Act (1992)

Click...

Rebel Wilson is setting her eye on the director’s chair.

The actress is set to make her directorial debut with a screen adaptation of the hit musical The Deb.

The film will be a joint production between Wilson’s Camp Sugar Productions and award-winning Australian producer Bunya Productions.

Read More: Rebel Wilson Shares New Photos Of Baby Daughter In Adorable Mother’s Day Post

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“’The Deb’ is my type of movie — full of humour, full of heart, and uniquely Australian but with universal themes. It came out of my scholarship program at the non-profit Australian Theatre for Young People, a program that I’m very proud of and has had incredible success. If there was ever a movie I was going to direct, it would be this one,” said the actress. “This project is just so special and original.

Rebel Wilson is getting behind the camera and has lined up her first feature as director.

The Deb, in which Wilson will also co-star, will be a musical comedy set in rural Australia, produced by Amanda Ghost, Len Blavatnik, and Gregor Cameron via their company Unigram (Tetris) and sister company AI Film (I, Tonya, Hacksaw Ridge).

Adapted from of the original hit musical of the same name — which debuted to critical acclaim in Australia — The Deb will be produced in partnership with Rebel Wilson’s Camp Sugar Productions (Senior Year, The Hustle) and award-winning Australian producer Bunya Productions (The Drover’s Wife, Mystery Road). Danny Cohen executive produces on behalf of Blavatnik’s Access Entertainment.

Originally premiering at Sydney’s Australian Theatre for Young People (Atyp) in 2022, The Deb stage production was written by Hannah Reilly (Sheilas, Growing up Gracefully) and includes original songs from singer-songwriter Meg Washington (The Beach...

Exclusive: Neil Meron, a force behind bring live events to television including such musicals as Jesus Christ Superstar, Annie and The Sound of Music, has joined Andrew Lloyd Webber’s London-based Really Useful Group as a consultant, Lloyd Webber announced today.

An acclaimed film, television and theater producer, Meron will work closely with Rug’s Licensing and Production team to identify and develop new opportunities for Lloyd Webber’s IP across North America, including mining talent and building new relationships with film companies, networks, streamers, dance companies and new media.

Meron also is expected to work closely with Lloyd Webber’s new joint venture with acclaimed British theater producer Michael Harrison to support new opportunities to explore in North America.

Said Lloyd Webber, “Neil and I go back a very, very long way, so it feels quite fitting that he take on this advisory role at Rug at this point in my career,...

The all-important question of which country will get custody of James Corden remains to be settled as the World Cup’s England vs. U.S. match on Friday ended in a 0-0 tie.

Fans on both sides joked that the losing side would be stuck with the British comedian, who he is stepping down as host of CBS’ “The Late Late Show With James Corden.”

A post from the Twitter account @NoContextBrits reading, “England vs. USA on Friday. The loser has to keep James Corden,” had more than 152,000 likes by Friday afternoon. When someone asked what would happen in the game ends in a tie, another soccer fan suggested, “we’ll send him to Canada.”

Also Read:

John Oliver Shreds ‘Cartel-Like’ FIFA for Giving World Cup to Qatar: Stadiums Were Built ‘Through Modern-Day Slavery’ (Video)

England vs. USA on Friday. The loser has to keep James Corden.

— No Context Brits...

Singer and all-round pop culture icon Debbie Harry (Hairspray) has joined the cast of Osgood Perkins' I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, joining Ruth Wilson (The Affair), Bob Balaban (The Grand Budapest Hotel), and Sundance breakout Lucy Boynton (Sing Street). Netflix will be the exclusive streaming home of the thriller, which Perkins wrote and will be directing. Principal photography is set to begin in Ottawa on February 16th. The project is part of…...

The whirlwind beehive of eccentric Russian reality TV star Elena Lenina almost stole the spotlight from Charlize Theron on the red carpet at the 68th Cannes Film Festival yesterday (May 14).

Lenina has become famous for her eye-catching attire and similarly quirky hairstyles at the film festival since 2003, and the star didn't disappoint with her crimped traffic cone-style 'do at the Mad Max: Fury Road premiere.

So distracting was her giant hair that we almost failed to notice her pair of feathered wings and completely sheer dress with strategically placed white embellishments to protect her modesty.

We pity the poor attendee seated behind her during the screening though...

Meanwhile, Theron stunned in a canary yellow figure-hugging Dior as she was accompanied by other stars from the George Miller movie including Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz and Courtney Eaton.

But back to Lenina's spectacular hair - and here's our favourite Elena Lenina...

Lgbt depiction in pop culture has come a long way since its first rumblings in the early ’70s. From the first recurring gay character on television (Vincent Schiavelli in The Corner Bar) to the Glee phenomenon, Lgbt-inclusive media is more prominent than ever before.

There are so many moments in entertainment that shaped Lgbt Hollywood forever. We offer several of those watershed events here. If your favorites didn’t make the list, let us know what you think are the greatest highlights in the comments below.

1971: Sunday Bloody Sunday shows first shame-free gay kiss

The British film about a bisexual man who is dating both a woman and man showed the first same-sex smooch without guilt.

1971: All in the Family bridges gay topics

In a benchmark episode, Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) has to deal with his prejudices when he believes an old friend could be gay. The...

Lgbt depiction in pop culture has come a long way since its first rumblings in the early ’70s. From the first recurring gay character on television (Vincent Schiavelli in The Corner Bar) to the Glee phenomenon, Lgbt-inclusive media is more prominent than ever before.

There are so many moments in entertainment that shaped Lgbt Hollywood forever. We offer several of those watershed events here. If your favorites didn’t make the list, let us know what you think are the greatest highlights in the comments below.

1971: Sunday Bloody Sunday shows first shame-free gay kiss

The British film about a bisexual man who is dating both a woman and man showed the first same-sex smooch without guilt.

1971: All in the Family bridges gay topics

In a benchmark episode, Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) has to deal with his prejudices when he believes an old friend could be gay. The...

Pia Zadora was hospitalized with serious head and leg injuries after falling off a motorized golf cart.

Entertainer Pia Zadora ,60, is in intensive care after falling off a motorized golf cart. Her husband Mike Jeffries told the Las Vegas Sun she is "in and out of consciousness and improving."

Jeffries described the incident to the Las Vegas Sun. He said she was thrown from a golf cart driven by her 17-year-old son Jordan on Thursday evening near the family's home in Summerlin, and she suffered from a compound fracture of her right ankle and a head injury that lead to bleeding on her brain.

Zadora is recovering at University Medial Center. She was supposed to perform live at Piero's Italian Cuisine on Friday and Saturday. Her performances for next weekend have also been canceled. 

Staring her career as a child on Broadway, Zadora is both a singer and an actress. She won the...

Beyonce and J.Lo both looked gorgeous on June 1 at the Chime For Change live concert in London. We’ve got the dish on their exact makeup looks. Keep reading and tell us which look you like best!

The Chime For Change concert in London was a star-studded event with celebs who were dressed to impress! Two of the stars that caught our eye were Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez. Both women had beauty looks that were oh-so-glam! Who do you think deserves the title of best beauty? Read below to find out the exact products the stars used to achieve their looks!

Beyonce’s Chime For Change Beauty — Gorgeous Alongside J.Lo

Beyonce looked ravishing on the red carpet with her timeless pin curls. She used L’Oreal Elnett Satin Strong Hold Hairspray to secure her locks in place. Her lip color was unique and looked amazing with her complexion.

Singer-actress Pia Zadora has been arrested on suspicion of domestic battery and coercion after a disturbance at her Las Vegas home. The '80s starlet, 61, was booked Saturday into the Clark County Detention Center and released after posting $4,000 bail. The Butterfly actress was arrested about 11 a.m., some six hours after police responded to a disturbance call at her home. Police declined to release the name of the victim and other details, saying further information would be released Monday. Zadora has been married to her third husband, Las Vegas police detective Michael Jeffries, since 2005. The couple met after Zadora contacted...

We're already less than a week away from the fifth season premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race, the reality competition that is officially funnier than Project Runway, fiercer than So You Think You Can Dance, and somehow more familial than The New Normal. The premiere party took place on Tuesday night at the Abbey in West Hollywood, and as Ru, Michelle Visage, and a blond, Dior-clad Sharon Needles (out of drag!) strolled the club, I snatched up quick interviews with three of the competing queens. Pleased to make your acquaintance, here are Monica Beverly Hillz, Penny Tration (!), and Vivienne Pinay.

Monica Beverly Hillz, 21, Owensboro, Ky

Your gold ensemble reminds me of Iman in the Michael Jackson "Remember the Time" video. What's your fashion inspiration?

Michael Jackson is legendary and I love his fashion, but first and foremost, I'm a huge Beyonce fan. 

Oh, yeah? Did you like her "performance" at Obama's inauguration?...

The eighth annual Tna Impact Wrestling No Surrender PPV rolls in to the Impact Zone tonight with a card stacked to prepare for Bound For Glory. A PPV with no world title match and a champion who isn’t in the main event shows just how important it is(n’t) to the guys in Florida. So why exactly should we care? Well there’s actually a few matches on the card with great potential – let’s just hope they manage to deliver after a relatively consistent run of great events in 2012.

So let’s have a look into our magic 8 ball and see how this one’s going to pan out.

Zema Ion Vs Sonjay Dutt – X Division Title Match

Sonjay Dutt was a Tna regular for years but never really made much of an impact until he started stalking So Cal Val. Shortly after that he disappeared only...

Actress/singer Pia Zadora had a brush with the law last week (ends05Feb12) after she was accused of fleeing the scene of a traffic accident in Las Vegas.

The Hairspray star was driving her white Cadillac SUV through Sin City when it allegedly struck a red BMW, and when Zadora reportedly failed to stop, the other motorist followed her home before calling police.

The star was subsequently cited on a charge of leaving the scene of an accident, according to TMZ.com.

A representative for Zadora says the 57 year old failed to stop because she didn't feel the impact of the collision and never intended to break the law.

Ho, ho, ho.

Oscilloscope Pictures will release the darkly violent and funny Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (review here) to Blu-ray and DVD on October 25th. The film earned praise from various festival runs, before a limited theatrical window. The film covers an archeological dig in a Finnish town that unearths Santa Claus; unfortunately, the real Santa is far more sinister than any of the townspeople expect.

Full specs haven’t been released by Oscilloscope Pictures, but the listing of extras has:

The two original short films that inspired the film: Rare Exports Inc. (2003) and Rare Exports – The Official Safety Instructions (2005)

The Making of Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale featurette

Blood in The Snow featurette on the preliminary concept art

Animatics & computer effects video comparison

Behind the scenes production stills photo gallery

Original Finnish theatrical trailer

Blu-ray Exclusive: Feature-length film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, the 1964 cult classic...

Here's one from the annals of amusing anecdotes: It's difficult to underscore what a huge Elvis Costello fan I am. To own everything that Elvis Costello has recorded is to possess your own miniature music library. An iPhone cannot even hold it all. His music has also played central to many of those momentous occasions in my life, and when I began this very site, I worked under a pseudonym briefly, Will Declan (the last name borrowed from Elvis Costello's real first name). Those that know me also know that I've attached his name to my, er, legacy in an even more significant way.

In June 2005, while I was on my honeymoon on Florence, Italy, I had the fortunate misfortune of meeting Elvis Costello briefly. My wife and I were sitting in an outdoor cafe when who but Mr. Costello would stumble upon that very cafe and sit behind...

HollywoodNews.com: Actor Vincent De Paul, who starred in many independent films and played various roles in several blockbusters including “Poseidon,” “Hitch,” and “Hairspray,” arrived at Frameline 34, San Francisco’s annual international Lgbt film festival, to support the Castro Theater’s packed house screening of the comedy “Baby Jane?” Also in attendance were his co-stars Matthew Martin, J. Conrad Frank, Heklina, Mike Finn, Ethel Merman, Ron Herman Symansky, Drew Todd, Sandy Schlechter, and Jeff Dylan Graham.

Directed by the talented Billy Clift, the drag-studded recreation of the 1962 black-and-white classic “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” drops us back into the wacky depths of sisterly rivalry. De Paul plays the well groomed Mad Men-esque Detective Bill Kovacks who investigates the strange, yet amusing, happenings at the home where former child star Baby Jane Hudson, who was overshadowed by her more famous sister Blanche, now holds the frail wheelchair-bound star prisoner following a mysterious automobile accident.

Listen, I love the Academy Awards. Love watching them with friends and a bottle of cheap champagne. Love talking about them for the entire year before they happen. Love the fact that winning an Oscar apparently makes you live longer and have lots of kids. But if we're talking about pure enjoyment, I'm a Golden Globes guy. I have no idea what the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is, or why they seem to think that "Comedy" and "Musical" are one and the same. I realize that they just love throwing nominations at a specious array of big-name stars: How else...

Chickflicks Prods. has optioned the film rights to Lisa Fineberg Cook's forthcoming memoir, "Japan Took the J.A.P. Out of Me."

Cook will adapt the screenplay with her teacher husband, Peter, who inadvertently laid the groundwork for the book. Downtown Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, will publish the memoir Tuesday.

Chickflicks' Stephanie Austin ("True Lies") and former New Line Prods. chairman Sara Risher ("Hairspray") are producing.

With the subtitle "The True Story of a Domesticated Princess," Cook's book details her personal journey of relocating to Japan six days after marrying her husband, who had taken a one-year teaching job in Nagoya. Having left her valet-defined L.A. life behind, Cook endures the abrupt transition to a culture severely lacking in manicures and Jewish-American women but teeming with cooking, cleaning and commuting duties.

"I love that she's so honest about what's going on," Austin said. "She's quite brave...

"Fame" is back on the big screen! Now "Extra" is bringing you facts about the 1980 Oscar-winning film -- and the 2009 remake for a new generation.

Facts about "Fame", Then and NowReturn to "Fame"The 2009 version of “Fame” is said to be a family-friendly remake of the 1980 original.

The updated film follows the same story: a group of New York performing arts high school students live their dreams and learn about each other along the way.

Hairspray star Ricki Lake will replace Sharon Osbourne as VH1's Rock Of Love: Charm School headmistress when the reality show returns this summer. Actress and former talk show queen will host the series, which aims to teach trashy young women a thing or two about poise, grace and manners, when it returns to U.S. TV screens.

Rock matriarch Osbourne hit the headlines at the end of her stint on the show after she was accused of assaulting a contestant.

Osbourne attacked Megan Hauserman during a recording of the TV show's reunion special in Los Angeles in December after the contestant insulted her by calling husband Ozzy a "brain-dead rocker".

Hauserman claims the 56 year old grabbed her by the hair and scratched her.

Osbourne has maintained she was the victim in the alleged brawl - hinting that Hauserman purposely targeted her to land her own TV deal.

Filed under: Drama, Casting

Josh Charles started out strong, but sure fizzled, didn't he? I mean, he started his career with Hairspray, before heading to the Dead Poets Society, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, and soon after, the sexually dysfunctional Threesome. But now he's cameo guy, and there's a new one on the way.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Charles and Justin Long are joining the Christina Ricci and Liam Neeson-starring After.Life. Long will play the boyfriend of a woman caught between life and death (Ricci), while Charles plays his friend. (Poor guy, relegated to token roles.) This is that long-in-gestation feature that once starred Kate Bosworth, and even had a poster released waaaay back in February of 2007. But it finally seems to be moving forward.

Meanwhile...

Four Leaf Tayback, also known as Nick Nolte, has grabbed a role in My Own Love Song, according to Variety. Pretty...

Actress and TV personality Ricki Lake has been slammed by professionals at the American Medical Association (Ama) for championing home births.

Lake's recent documentary The Business of Being Born suggested hospital births could be problematic - a claim refuted by medical officials.

Doctors have warned expectant mothers not to follow the Hairspray star's example, and Ama members are now campaigning to U.S. lawmakers to pass legislation officially stating that the "safest setting" for birth is in a hospital, reports TMZ.com.

Original Hairspray star Ricki Lake has named childhood sexual abuse as the reason for her weight issues. The actress-turned-talk show host ballooned to 260 pounds at her heaviest and struggled to slim down. Lake then started taking her health seriously and successfully shed over half her body weight. And she feels she wouldn't have had to battle the bulge if she hadn't been molested as a child. She says, "I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and I think it contributed. Who knows for sure? I've done many years in therapy and worked on all my issues. I didn't talk about it for, like, 15 or 20 years; I didn't admit that it had happened to me because I wanted to kind of bury things. It, in some way, made me who I am today... I don't want to be a poster child for this at all but it's very weird thing for children when they're violated in that way. Food became a comfort to me; it was my kind of security blanket." Speaking exclusively to U.S. news show Access Hollywood, Lake admitted she never confronted her abuser when she eventually told her parents of the abuse - but the person was "quickly removed" from her life.

Gillian Brooks Fischer has been upped to senior vp field publicity and promotions at New Line Cinema. She was director, publicity and promotions.

Fischer, who joined the company in 2000, will continue to oversee the operations of New Line's 25 field agencies as well as running junkets and promotions for all the company's domestic releases. She remains based at New Line's worldwide headquarters in Los Angeles, and will continue to report to New Line senior vp publicity Elissa Greer.

"Gillian has top-notch relationships, market savvy and tremendous creativity," Greer said. "She's a highly valued member of our team, and we're thrilled to recognize her work with this promotion."

Fischer handled field campaigns and junkets for the studio's The Lord of the Rings films, as well as Austin Powers in Goldmember, Wedding Crashers and Hairspray, among others.

She joined the company from Sony Pictures Entertainment, where she spent two years as manager, field publicity/promotions, following a stint at PolyGram Films.

Fischer is a graduate of Brandeis University, with a bachelor's degree in American studies.

Gillian Brooks Fischer has been upped to senior vp field publicity and promotions at New Line Cinema. She was director, publicity and promotions.

Fischer, who joined the company in 2000, will continue to oversee the operations of New Line's 25 field agencies as well as running junkets and promotions for all the company's domestic releases. She remains based at New Line's worldwide headquarters in Los Angeles, and will continue to report to New Line senior vp publicity Elissa Greer.

"Gillian has top-notch relationships, market savvy and tremendous creativity," Greer said. "She's a highly valued member of our team, and we're thrilled to recognize her work with this promotion."

Fischer handled field campaigns and junkets for the studio's The Lord of the Rings films, as well as Austin Powers in Goldmember, Wedding Crashers and Hairspray, among others.

She joined the company from Sony Pictures Entertainment, where she spent two years as manager, field publicity/promotions, following a stint at PolyGram Films.

Fischer is a graduate of Brandeis University, with a bachelor's degree in American studies.

Court TV has greenlighted production on its first original scripted series, 'Til Death Do Us Part, starring filmmaker John Waters.

The network has ordered 13 half-hour episodes from Blueprint Entertainment. Each episode of the series, which will be shot in Toronto through Jan. 29, will dramatize stories inspired by true crimes of happily married couples whose once-wedded bliss ends in murder.

Waters, director of such films as Pink Flamingos and Hairspray, plays the Groom Reaper, guiding the viewer through each case.

Unknown teenager Nikki Blonsky has landed the role of a lifetime - as the chubby star of the Hairspray movie remake. The 17-year-old New Yorker will play hefty heroine Tracy Turnblad in the star-studded new film, in which John Travolta will play her mother. Billy Crystal and Queen Latifah have already signed on for the project, while teen queen Amanda Bynes will play Turnblad's best pal Penny Pingleton. Blonsky is well known in her native Great Neck, where she often performs the National Anthem at local sports meetings, but her biggest role to date is in the hometown musical Hair. The actress was discovered during a nationwide casting search to find an unknown to play Turnblad. She'll quit her job as an ice-cream store employee to play the part. Ricki Lake played Turnblad in the original 1988 Hairspray, directed by John Waters.

Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival

The Tony-winning success of Hairspray might have made him a mainstream darling, but John Waters has returned to trashy form with what is unquestionably his most outrageous film since those heady Pink Flamingos days.

A giddy sex farce starring Tracey Ullman as a repressed Baltimore resident (where else?) who turns into a raging sex maniac after receiving a freak head injury, this overheated ode to depravity and general bad taste kicks some silly smut in the face of today's conservative-leaning, post-wardrobe-malfunction society.

Granted, Waters has problems keeping it up -- the content really struggles to sustain a feature-length format -- but the picture, wearing its NC-17 rating like a badge of dishonor, should nevertheless emerge as his best boxoffice bet since 1994's Serial Mom.

Ullman is Sylvia Stickles, a generally unhappy woman with a horny husband (Chris Isaak) and a go-go dancer daughter with ridiculously enlarged breasts (an unrecognizable Selma Blair) and a stage name of Ursula Udders, whose bouts of exhibitionism have landed her in home detention.

One day en route to her family-operated Pinewood Park and Pay convenience store, Sylvia sustains a smack in the head that turns her into a card-carrying sex addict around the same time she's spotted by writhing tow-truck driver Ray-Ray Perkins (Johnny Knoxville -- a Watersian name if there ever was one), who believes her to be the long-awaited 12th apostle of erotic awakening.

While Ray-Ray, whose battle cry is "Let's go sexin'!" inducts her into his inner circle of fetishists, Sylvia's mother, Big Ethel (Suzanne Shepherd), along with libido-hating neighbor Marge the Neuter (Mink Stole), launch a campaign to take back their neighborhood from all the disgusting deviants.

Taking his stylistic cue from cautionary movies like Reefer Madness and old high school health films, Waters also throws vintage sexploitation flicks and musty nudist camp clips into the naughty mix, while his longtime production designer Vincent Peranio heightens the kitschy landscape with suggestive-looking foliage.

Waters also spent a lot of time coming up with wacky euphemisms like "yodeling in the canyon," while Ullman's Stickles refers to a part of her anatomy as her "axis of evil."

There also seems to be nothing too taboo for the rest of his willing cast, which also includes Patricia Hearst (in her fifth Waters film) and David Hasselhoff in a sequence so tasteless the late Divine would have smiled approvingly.

Fine Line

Fine Line Features presents This Is That Killer Films/John Wells production

In association with City Light Pictures

A John Waters film

Credits:

Director-screenwriter: John Waters

Producers: Christine Vachon, Ted Hope

Executive Producers: Mark Ordesky, Mark Kaufman, Merideth Finn, John Wells, The Fisher Brothers

Director of photography: Steve Gainer

Production designer: Vincent Peranio

Editor: Jeffrey Wolf

Costume designer: Van Smith

Music: George S. Clinton

Music supervisor: Tracy McKnight

Cast:

Sylvia Stickles: Tracey Ullman

Ray-Ray Perkins: Johnny Knoxville

Caprice Stickles: Selma Blair

Vaughn Stickles: Chris Isaak

Big Ethel: Suzanne Shepherd

Marge the Neuter: Mink Stole

Paige: Patricia Hearst

Dora: Jackie Hoffman

Himself: David Hasselhoff

Running time -- 89 minutes

MPAA Rating: NC-17...

Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth, who is earning positive reviews for her starring turn as Glinda in the stage production of Wicked, is headed from Broadway to the big screen. The actress will make her feature film debut with a lead role in the movie musical Asphalt Beach for director Peter Spears. Described as being in the spirit of Hairspray and Grease, the story revolves around two girls from opposite ends of the social spectrum whose paths cross at a very strict Catholic school. Chenoweth will play the spoiled rich girl.

Thomas Meehan (book writer of The Producers and Hairspray) remarked that Bombay Dreams, the London hit he is rewriting for American audiences, will be opening on Broadway in April. In addition, he is collaborating with Mel Brooks on a musical version of Brooks' Young Frankenstein. ... Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Tony-winning songwriters for Hairspray) are planning a musical based on Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can. ... Jerry Mitchell (choreographer for Hairspray) is getting ready to convert his annual Broadway Bares show, a benefit performance featuring chorus dancers in satiric strip-tease acts, into a full fledged Broadway production with all-new material. ... Madeline Martin, the little actress who played the mentally disabled daughter in Joe Egg, has a role lined up in the upcoming musical A Little Princess. ... Jack O'Brien (best director of a musical for Hairspray) is directing a stage version of the film His Gal Friday for the National Theatre in London. Then he'll helm the national company of Hairspray with Bruce Vilanch (Hollywood Squares) in the Harvey Fierstein role, followed by Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 at Lincoln Center starring Kevin Kline, Richard Easton, Billy Crudup and Ethan Hawke.

Following in the footsteps of Mel Brooks, John Waters's outrageous film Hairspray is heading to the Broadway stage. The show will be produced by Steven Baruch, a producer of The Producers. The film version starred the late transvestite entertainer Divine and it is reported that his role will be taken by Harvey Fierstein.